NASA scientists have come up with their new theories to explain the existence of a ninth planet in the solar system.
Konstantin Batygin, a planetary astrophysicist at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California said, "There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine. If you were to remove this explanation and imagine planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles and you must come up with five different theories to explain them."
According to the researchers, Planet Nine would have 10 times the mass of earth and would be 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. The gravitational footprints of objects in the Kuiper belt beyond Neptune have made the experts predict the existence of the ninth planet.
The Astronomical Journal, which was published based on a paper from January 2016 on the Planet Nine trails, said that six objects studied in the Kepler belt had elliptical orbits pointed in the same direction. They also had 30-degrees tilt in their orbitals while the currently known eight solar planets travelled in the same plane around the sun.
Computer generated simulations of the solar system show that many of the objects in the belt formed a 90-degree angle with the plane of the solar system to form an X-shaped pattern with them.
An article by Elizabeth Bailey of Caltech University states that the ninth planet might have caused tilts in the orbitals of the known eight solar planets. She explains that the planet orbits are tilted six degrees away from the Sun's equator.
Batygin, one of the authors of the theory, said that Planet Nine will make the entire solar system plane to precess and wobble like a top on a table.
Another important aspect which gives life to the existence of the planet is the orbital of the Kuiper belt objects in the opposite direction of the other solar objects. The influence of the mysterious planet is said to have caused this deviation from the Kuiper belt objects.
The researchers believe that the detection of the Ninth Planet is the key to details about its origin. The researchers, however, do not believe that the unknown planet would cause any harm to Earth or any solar planets.
